


our love is cool

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: (i guess), Angst, I wanted to get some Mynock feelings out, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Multi, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: They’re like the set-up to a longwinded bad joke. A clone, a Rodian, an alcoholic, a force witch, and a baby are trapped in hyperspace together, and--And what’s the punchline? That it feels like what Bacta imagines home feels like? That in this moment, Tamlin making soft, sweet noises in his arms, he almost forgets he was born in a lab and bred to die?
Relationships: Aava Arek/Trystan "Tryst" Valentine, CT-1776 | Bacta/Trystan "Tryst" Valentine, Leenik Geelo/Trystan "Tryst" Valentine
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	our love is cool

**Author's Note:**

> So I apparently wrote this months ago and completely forgot about it but I like it, so I'm posting it. There's technically more, which is why the end is so abrupt, but I kinda wanted to keep it at this. Definitely parts are not kanan because I'm four years deep into my own fanon hole so apologies for that lmao. Title from Wolf Alice.

**20BBY**

The baby won’t stop crying and they’ve all been awake for so long that none of them can stand each other even remotely. Except Bacta, confidently re-applying leesai to the stain on his neck before gently taking the kid out of Grizelle’s arms and into another room. She starts to ask what in the force he thinks he’s doing, but it turns into a yawn and she passes out against Tryst’s shoulder.

Tamlin stops crying, and it’s enough for Tryst to pass out too. Leenik’s been reading through all of this, and he’s almost done with his book. It’s a good one. A strapping upstart bounty hunter falls in love with the rogue Jedi he’s been sent to kill. Leenik  _ loves _ books about bounty hunters.

In the other room, Bacta holds Tamlin, bounces him in his arms a little. It’s an odd thing to think, but he’s never actually  _ seen _ a baby before, not a real one that came out of a real being, just the racks of clone embryos, the clinical nurseries of Kamino. It’s making him feel something he can’t place. Some kind of aching pain that fills his heart so much he can barely breathe. 

The pain only swells more as he goes to give Tamlin back to Griz and finds her asleep sitting up, curled into Tryst’s side as he snores, probably more loudly than Tama was crying, and Leenik, big eyes glassy, suction-cup fingers sticking to the pages of his book as he intently tries to turn them. 

They’re like the set-up to a longwinded bad joke.  _ A clone, a Rodian, an alcoholic, a force witch, and a baby are trapped in hyperspace together, and-- _

And what’s the punchline? That it feels like what Bacta imagines home feels like? That in this moment, Tamlin making soft, sweet noises in his arms, he almost forgets he was born in a lab and bred to die? 

Not a very funny joke.

**19BBY**

“Okay, okay, okay,” Tryst says, arms spread wide. “Order in the court. Judge Valentine presiding in the case of Geelo versus Bacta. Plaintiff, present your case.”

He’s drunk. They’re all drunk. They finally have their own ship, one big enough that they actually all have beds, and they’re celebrating by getting tanked and having stupid petty fights. 

“Wait, wouldn’t I be the...prosecutor...or?” Leenik asks, squinting and looking down, desperately trying to remember the last legal thriller by Nemoidian Sparks.

“This isn’t a criminal case, Bacta’s committed no crimes,” Grizelle says, hugging her knees and smiling at Bacta.

“Objection!” Leenik shouts, throwing his hand up and then pointing at Griz. “She’s not involved in this case!”

“I’m the lawyer for the defense,” Griz says.

“She’s the lawyer for the defense,” Bacta says, nodding intently. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Overruled, she can be part of this if she wants, I don’t care,” Tryst says, pouring himself another shot and slamming it back. “Come on, plaintiff, get to it.”

“Okay, well, it’s  _ stupid _ that Bacta gets a bunk when he doesn’t sleep,” Leenik says. “Tryst--”

“Judge Valentine, please, show some respect,” Tryst says, doing another shot and gagging on it.

“Okay,  _ Judge Valentine _ gets his own room, which, by the way, is  _ total _ nerf-scat--”

“Judge Valentine, are you really gonna let him speak to you like that?” Griz asks, laughing as Tryst hands her a shot.

“No,” Tryst says. “No, I am not. This is your last warning, plaintiff, treat this court with the respect it deserves or we’ll have to get the bailiff to deal with you.”

“Who’s the bailiff?” Leenik asks.

Griz slams the shot Tryst gave her and raises her hand, wiggling her fingers.

“You’re Bacta’s lawyer!” 

“I can have two jobs, I’m a strong independent woman,” Griz says, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes at him. Tryst laughs and puts a hand in her hair, ruffling it fairly aggressively.

“ _ Okay fine can we get back to the point _ ,” Leenik whines. 

“I don’t know,  _ can _ we?” Tryst asks, forgoing his shotglass and drinking straight from the bottle of space gin.

“This is a kriffing kangaroo court.” Leenik crosses his arms and shakes his head theatrically.

“Last warning, Geelo,” Bacta says.

“ _ Gah _ . Okay. So, Tryst--” Leenik starts. Tryst opens his mouth to speak. “ _ Judge Valentine _ gets his own room, which he deserves because he’s a very upstanding member of society and this crew--”

“Thank you,” Tryst says.

“--but  _ Bacta _ doesn’t sleep, and yet I’m supposed to share a bunk with him? No way. No way! I should get my own room too,” Leenik says. 

“But where’m I gonna keep my  _ stuff _ ?” Bacta asks. 

“I don’t know! Not in my bunk!” Leenik shrieks.

“It’s not  _ your _ bunk, mate, this is  _ our  _ ship, and--”

“It  _ should _ be my bunk because, again,  _ you literally do not sleep _ \--”

“Okay, order in the court,” Tryst says, slamming his hand against the table as a gavel. “You both have points. Bacta, when we are all sober, I think we can find a spot  _ somewhere _ on the ship for you to keep your stuff. But Leenik, your other bunk is fair game for extra people we pick up. Like Griz and Tam.”

“Okay, geez, fine,” Leenik mutters. 

“I’m good at this judging thing. I should do this for money,” Tryst says, mostly to himself, pouring Bacta a shot as he sticks his glass out for it.

Bacta slams it back and puts his arm around Tryst. He beckons for Leenik with the other arm, and Leenik takes a reluctant step towards him, accompanied by a heavy sigh. Bacta curls his other arm around Leenik’s shoulders.

“Boys, we’re going places,” Bacta says, and Leenik laughs a kind of winded laugh, ducking out of Bacta’s reach and quickly going into his room. “Y’know, I try with that guy, but I don’t...I don’t get him.”

Tryst shrugs. “Yeah, I dunno. I think we just kinda have to let him do his own thing.”

“Griz, come on, get in here,” Bacta says, gesturing for her with his vacant arm.

“I should probably check on Tama, I’m being an  _ incredibly _ irresponsible mother,” Griz says, shrugging at him and getting up, steadying herself on the wall.

“He’ll be...fine…” Bacta says, sighing as she also disappears into Leenik’s room, where Tamlin’s theoretically asleep.

“Well,” Tryst says, turning to look at Bacta, nose almost brushing his cheek. 

“Well?” Bacta asks, almost too afraid to look back at him.

“Wanna finish this sucker off and do something we’ll inevitably regret in the name of celebrating our first win as a crew?” Tryst asks, brandishing the bottle of space gin.

Bacta shrugs. “Eh, why not.”

**18BBY**

Tamlin’s first word is a very delighted ‘kriff’, and naturally, he will not stop repeating it. Tryst can’t get enough of it, keeps cuing the kid in to swear for him in conversation, and Griz laughs just as hard every time. 

Bacta knows it’s cute but he keeps worrying that they’re corrupting the kid, that they’re already bad influences. He’s been anxious about it all day, until Griz finally pulls him aside, takes his hand, and reaches out with the force to calm him. 

“It’s just a word, Bacta,” she says, smiling her disbelieving-yet-understanding smile. “Come on. It’s funny. The galaxy’s a hellhole, who cares if a two-year-old knows how to swear?”

“I know,” Bacta says, rubbing his scar. “I know, but I just--I--none of us got childhoods. He should get a childhood.”

“And knowing  _ one _ swear is gonna deprive him of a childhood?” She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him. “I know you were raised weird, but that’s a bit much.”

“Just...do you think we’re really the best people to have around him? Tryst’s...you know, he’s Tryst, and Leenik’s just downright  _ odd _ , and it’s not like I’m any better, I’m--” 

“Bacta.” She takes his hands again and squeezes. “Tryst’s a mess, but he’s fun and caring and responsible when he needs to be. Leenik’s a weirdo, but he’s never gonna baby Tama, he’s gonna treat him like an adult, and someone probably needs to. And you--I mean, I don’t wanna speak for you, but you  _ love _ him.”

“I do,” Bacta says, softly, squeezing her hands back. “I really, really do.”

“Far as I’m concerned, he’s got three great uncles,” she says, smiling up at him, and he tries hard to swallow down the lump in his throat. He pulls her into a hug and holds her there until Tamlin comes up, pulls on her leg, and shouts ‘kriff’ until she picks him up.

**17BBY**

They’ve been on a long, surprisingly difficult job for Jabba for weeks now, and the end is finally in sight, it’s just a few day hyperspace jump back to Tatooine and it’s all over. Tryst’s apparently determined to drink himself comatose on the way there, and after a brief, dangerous and bloody scrape with a unit of stormtroopers, Leenik’s been weird and faraway. 

Bacta’s just tired. Bone-tired. Misses Tamlin and Griz, misses the stability of the life he was created for, hell, misses  _ sleeping _ . The comfort of settling into a bed and just closing his eyes, his brothers breathing softly around him. Maybe he just misses the companionship. Maybe he’s the morose end of wine-buzzed. Either way, he finds himself in Tryst’s room, sitting on his bed.

Tryst’s awake, if you can call it that, curled up in a kimono at the head of his bed listening to Spacejan Stevens in the dark, which is never really a good sign for someone’s mental health.

“What brings you to my hungr--no, huma--no, kriff, what--” Tryst rubs his face. “I don’t know. Why’re you here.”

“I don’t really know,” Bacta says.

“Oooookay,” Tryst says.

“Are you okay, mate?” Bacta asks, and Tryst snorts, then covers his mouth with his hand like he startled himself.

He nods, exaggeratedly, aggressively. “Ohhhh yeah. Me? I’m so good. I’m  _ so _ good. I love love  _ love _ working for Jabba, it’s my  _ favorite _ . I also  _ love _ going home.”

“Buddy…” Bacta says, sighing, putting a hand on Tryst’s bare knee. Tryst stares at his hand. “You could’ve used your veto on doing the job.”

“We need the money,” Tryst mutters. “I know we need the money. I’m not gonna kriff us all over cuz of, cuz he  _ owned _ me, I’m not that selfish. Who cares that I only exist because more kids meant more money meant getting my parents out of the hole they got themselves in because of Jabba, I don’t care.”

“Tryst,” Bacta says, softly, reaching for the bottle that Tryst’s putting to his lips. “I think you should stop.”

“I think  _ you _ should stop trying to help us,” Tryst says, kicking out at Bacta. “You can’t fix me and you can’t fix whatever the hell’s broken in Leenik.”

“I’m not trying to fix you, Tryst, I’m trying to love you. I’m trying to be a good friend, and it’s  _ hard _ ,” Bacta says, and his voice breaks on the last word. “Y’know, I’m struggling too.”

Tryst looks genuinely upset that he upset Bacta. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, putting the bottle down. “What’s...can I...is…” He shrugs, helplessly.

“Can you just…” Bacta says, sighing and trailing off. “This is gonna sound stupid and sappy, but can you just lay here with me?”

Tryst nods and stretches out, rolling over to give Bacta enough room to lie down next to him. “Sorry I’m hard to love,” Tryst says, softly. Bacta can feel Tryst’s breath on his neck.

“You’re not,” Bacta says. “You’re really not.”

Tryst stretches an arm over Bacta’s side and Bacta takes his hand and holds it. He closes his eyes and listens to Tryst’s steady breathing as he falls asleep. Bacta just lies there, staring at nothing until morning.

**16BBY**

Tryst ‘accidentally’ lets it slip that the reason Aava was too distracted to come after Griz was because he was eating her out in a maintenance closet, and no one’s speaking to him, despite his repeated protests that they should be thanking him.

Bacta’s mad that he’s sleeping with the enemy, Griz is mad that he’s sleeping with specifically her evil ex-best friend who wants to steal her son, and Leenik just seems upset, really, for no good reason, but whatever, he’s on the mad-at-Tryst train, so it doesn’t matter. 

The only problem is that shaming Tryst Valentine is impossible. The angrier any of them gets, the more proud of it he is, the more convinced he becomes that they’re all ‘just jealous’. 

Jealous. Right. Bacta’s slept with Tryst any number of times, though that’s probably too kind of a term for it, and it’s nothing worth being jealous about. He has suspicions about Tryst and Griz, too, but nothing he knows for certain, and certainly never anything he’d ask about.

It’s easy to be mad at Tryst. It’s much easier than dealing with the fact that they’re now officially Rebels and Enemies Of The Empire, which is fine, kriff the Empire, but they have a four-year-old child they need to keep safe, and this is gonna make it a hell of a lot harder.

But that’s a problem for another time. The problem at hand is endlessly, circularly petty fighting. They’re all  _ really _ good at that.

**15BBY**

The problem for another time becomes pretty immediate when they’re blindly jumping away from the Murderball. Bacta hasn’t let go of Tamlin since they got on the ship, just squeezed him tight, maybe too tight, and Tryst’s still white-knuckled on the hyper-thruster even though they jumped a full five minutes ago.

“That was close,” Leenik says, still breathing shallowly, sitting down and hugging his legs. “That was really close.”

“So Griz is really...she’s…” Tryst says, just staring out into hyperspace, not letting go of the thruster. 

Tamlin wails even though Tryst doesn’t finish the sentence, and Bacta just holds him tighter, tears burning his eyes. 

“I know it hurts, buddy,” he says in Tamlin’s ear, softly, and it would probably be more convincing if he weren’t crying, wouldn’t it. “But it’s gonna get better. You’ll get used to the pain. And she’ll always be with you, I promise.”

“I don’t wanna get used to it,” Tamlin sobs, wiping his nose on Bacta’s shirt. 

“I know,” Bacta says, pressing Tamlin’s horns into him so tight they draw blood. “I know, Tama. I don’t either.”

“And Aava’s just gonna chase us and she’s gonna  _ take _ me again and--” Tamlin says, sobbing, forgotten dishes from before everything went to hell rattling on the table.

“No. Hey. No. I promise you, that will _ never _ happen,” Bacta says, soft but firm. “I’ll die before I let that happen, Tamlin.”

“ _ I don’t want you to die _ ,” Tamlin wails, and a glass shatters, and the sound startles Tryst out of whatever trance he was in, and he gets up and slowly makes his way to the kitchen, pulling a bottle of spacequila out of a cabinet with shaky hands and chugging as he sinks down against the counter.

“I know, and it won’t come to that,” Bacta says. “I’m just saying, she’s  _ never _ going to take you back, long as I’m alive.”

“Me too,” Tryst says, quietly but confidently. “And we’re not gonna die, Tamlin, okay? We’re the heroes. The good guys always win.”

“But mom was a good guy.”

“Yeah. She was a great guy,” Tryst says.

“The galaxy’s a kriffing nightmare, kid,” Leenik says, from his spot on the floor. “Good people die for no reason and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. We’re all gonna die. We’re all gonna lose each other and die. Nothing matters, we just--”

“ _ Leenik _ ,” Bacta hisses, desperately, Tamlin convulsing with silent tears against his chest.

“I was  _ saying _ death is inevitable but if we all just...uh...I don’t know, if we all just  _ believe _ hard enough, everything’s gonna work out, because, I don’t know, the force?” Leenik says, passionlessly.

“We’re not gonna leave you, Tamlin,” Tryst says. “We’re not going anywhere. I promise.”

**14BBY**

Tryst’s holding his guts in and Bacta keeps trying to pry his hand away from the wound so he can do something,  _ anything  _ to help, but Tryst is delirious and in shock and uncooperative and he’s going to give himself space sepsis and then Bacta’s going to have an aneurysm and die, and it doesn’t help that Tamlin  _ will not stop screaming _ . 

Bacta tries to never yell at the kid, but it’s getting hard, because he’s  _ trying _ to compartmentalize all of this at lightspeed and do his job, and the screaming isn’t helping, it’s just reminding him that he wants to scream.

Leenik snaps at Tamlin before Bacta gets the chance to, and he’s almost grateful. Bacta doesn’t catch all of it but it’s something to the effect of  _ your uncle Tryst is dying right now, kriffing Dying, and  _ you’re  _ screaming?  _ You’re  _ upset? Shut up, stars, shut  _ up. 

It’s horrible and mean and Bacta’s gonna yell at him for it later but that’s really not the worst problem right now.

Tryst won’t listen to his gentle pleas to move his hands, or his commands. Leenik’s in a  _ break everything  _ mood, so Bacta tries to get him to help, hoping maybe Leenik can be mean enough to get through the organ failure.

Leenik’s soft instead, and it almost feels invasive to watch. He puts his robot hand on Tryst’s cheek, makes Tryst look him in the eyes, not that Tryst’s eyes are really focusing on anything. Bacta doesn’t even hear what he says, it’s so quiet, but Tryst’s eyelids flutter a little and he drops his hand, and Bacta quickly moves in, cleans, slaps bacta packs on, tries to sew the wound shut, but it’s bad, they’re gonna need to dump him in a tank somewhere, and that’s an entirely different kind of nightmare, finding somewhere remote enough that they can leave him defenseless in a bacta tank for a few days.

Everything’s a nightmare lately, nothing’s ever easy anymore. It’s the small mercies that keep them all going, the fact that Tryst keeps breathing through the night, talking softly to whatever his delirium is making him see, barely kept awake by the leesai Bacta’s panickedly applying every few hours at too-high doses. 

Someday they’re not gonna be so lucky. The fact that  _ this _ is what passes for lucky makes Bacta laugh, and then he can’t stop, he’s just shaking, laughing so hard no sound comes out, and Tryst watches him.

“Me too, buddy,” Tryst says, once Bacta starts being able to breathe again. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed <3  
> I'm on tumblr @witnesstotheend


End file.
